


Facing Home

by ooihcnoiwlerh



Series: Do You Believe [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asperger Syndrome, Autism Spectrum, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Physical Abuse, There are parts of this I felt genuinely uncomfortable writing, Verbal Abuse, canon neurodivergent character, follows the events of Do You Believe, non-canon after 3.06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 08:54:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9598460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ooihcnoiwlerh/pseuds/ooihcnoiwlerh
Summary: Ed has never talked about his past, and Oswald doesn't ask.  That changes when Ed gets a letter addressed to Edward Nashton.*edited and reformatted





	

**Author's Note:**

> "He never said anything about what life was like when he was a kid. Didn't you think I noticed?...I did, and he knew I did. We knew each other...like the only two people not drinking at a big booze-up." -Lisey's Story; Stephen King
> 
> "They fuck you up, your mum and dad.  
> They may not mean to, but they do.  
> They fill you up with the faults they had,  
> And leave some extra just for you.  
> But they were fucked up in their turn  
> By fools in old-style hats and coats,  
> Who half the time were soppy-stern  
> And half at one another's throats.  
> Man hands on misery to man.  
> It deepens like a coastal shelf.  
> Get out as early as you can,  
> And don't have any kids yourself."  
> -This Be the Verse; Philip Larkin

Oswald knows—and he _knows_ Ed knows he knows—that the man he loves wasn’t always Edward Nygma. They haven’t discussed it. Oswald has left it alone; Ed loves to talk, whether or not anyone wants to hear him. If he wanted to talk about his name change, about his childhood, he would.

He’s heard Oswald talk about how much he loved his parents—his mother, the only person he ever loved for thirty-one years, and later his long-lost father who offered him sanctuary, safety, redemption, love when Oswald thought such a thing impossible. Ed knows, and has never once talked about his own family.

  
Oswald won’t press, but there’s a part of him that knows, that recognizes Ed doesn’t talk about his parents, his childhood because for all that he will readily contemplate the worst of anything, for all his fantastic and morbid mind can focus on anything, that he doesn’t want to remember who he was before he came to Gotham. So Oswald knows enough; he knows every time Ed doesn’t offer a quip about his childhood, about his family. He hopes eventually Ed will tell him, and he knows for a fact that if Ed ever asked, he’d slaughter every last one of the people who tormented Ed before he became the force of nature he is now.

But Ed doesn’t ask, doesn’t share that part of him, and Oswald never presses.

  
Except one day; it’s seven months after they officially/secretly started dating. Oswald sees Ed look over the daily mail, sees him sort personal mail from bills after greeting the mail-carrier with his usual cheer. He sees Ed flinch as though he’s been slapped the third post down as Oswald comes down the stairs.

  
The thing with Ed is, and Oswald loves this about him, is that he doesn’t spook easily. Few things seem to frighten him, even when they should. Ed’s even less likely to hold his own in a fistfight than Oswald, but he doesn’t back down from danger, even when he should. (Arguably, Oswald doesn’t enjoy that part quite so much.)

  
Ed does look spooked when he reads over the envelope. He doesn’t acknowledge Oswald as he descends the stairs but stands, frozen. Oswald glimpses the writing on the front, the name Ed no longer uses.

  
_Edward Nashton_

  
“Everything alright?” Oswald asks.

  
Ed starts; the movement reminiscent of a frightened deer as he crosses to the wastebasket near the foyer and drops the envelope in. “I’m _fine_ ,” he snaps, and offers nothing else as he sorts through the rest of the mail.

 

 

Ed doesn’t officially live at the manor—for the record, he has a one-room apartment in northeast Gotham. He rarely sleeps there; he and his underlings tend to use it as a base of operations and weapons storage. That is the home he has listed, but most nights he stays at Oswald’s. His suite is still there as well, but he doesn’t usually sleep there, either.

  
Oswald doesn’t question what happened, doesn’t bring it up, but part of him knows he doesn’t need to.

  
He’s sure Ed thinks he’s fast asleep when he disentangles his limbs from Oswald’s and slips out from under the covers, when he grabs his glasses from the nightstand, when he leaves the room. He’s not so subtle as he thinks, nor does he realize how much Oswald has come to depend on the warmth of his body to sleep; of the steady heartbeat against his back, the arms wrapped around his middle.

  
Oswald waits precisely two minutes before he gets out of bed, pulls his bathrobe over his pajamas, and heads downstairs.

  
He sees Ed in his boxers and undershirt, sitting in the parlor, staring at the opened letter. Oswald wonders what he should say, if anything. If he should address the way Ed slowly starts to rock back and forth as he sits, as he wraps an arm around himself.

  
He doesn’t have to wonder long. “My father died,” Ed tells him. He doesn’t look up. “Drunk driving incident.” He fiddles with the letter, tears at the corners of the envelope. “Both drivers were drunk, apparently.”

  
Oswald steps closer to him, waits for a sign that Ed wants him to sit down with him, and when he gets it: a short, jerky nod, he sits beside him and glances at the letter, at the obituary clipping that rests folded up at the bottom of the page.

  
“James Nashton. Longtime employee at the Lackawanna Steel Mill in upstate New York. Dead at fifty-five.” He finally glances at Oswald. “I told you I grew up in upstate New York, right?”

  
“Yes, you did,” Oswald tells him.

  
Ed glances at the letter. “That’s all I ever told you, isn’t it?” he asks.

  
“Yes, Ed.”

  
Ed unfolds the obituary and sets it on the coffee table, and gestures palm out at the picture of the tall, middle-aged man standing in a weathered hunting jacket. Oswald decides not to comment on the physical similarities in the dark hair—the man in the photo’s is longer and streaked with gray—and dark eyes, the rangy builds, even if Ed’s shoulders are narrower. James Nashton had a salt-and-pepper beard that obscured some of his facial structure, but the resemblance is there. Ed knows. He probably hates it.

  
“He worked an honest job, was a normal hard-working American who liked sports and cheap beer and hated East Coast Democrats. And West Coast Democrats. And commies. And illegal immigrants. And freaks.” He laughs; a harsh bark of a noise that reminds Oswald more of a smothered shout.

....................

“You saying my kid’s a retard?” James Nashton demands as Ed, seven years old and waiting in one of the plastic chairs just outside the room, hears it all perfectly.

  
“Not at all! Just the opposite; Edward is a very intelligent child; brilliant, even. I’d recommend getting his IQ tested because it is likely far _higher_ than most.”

  
“So why does he act like this? You try spending more than an hour with him? It’s impossible. He’s a goddamn spaz.”

  
Ed glances down at his book. It’s an enormous book of Greek mythology, and while Ed likes all the illustrations, he can’t help but wonder if the author was banking on the illustrator taking up as much space as possible to make up for the lackluster writing. Or low word count, considering the length of the book. He wonders when he can go home. He spent hours looking over Rorschach tests with grown-ups who went, “ _Oh, really! Hmmm_!” when he knew what they were, and made sad little noises when he admitted he didn’t have friends. He wonders if they really think it matters if he sees a bat or a squirrel in the ink blots or if he should’ve lied to see if they thought he was a completely different person if he saw something else.

  
“We think he may have Asperger’s syndrome.”

  
At that Dad bursts out laughing. “Fucking _what_?” he says. “What genius decided to call it that? _Asperger’s_?”

  
“I understand it’s an unfortunate name,” the psychiatrist says quickly, “but it’s a minor developmental disorder on the Autism spectrum that makes it difficult for him to pick up on social cues and nonverbal communication. It may also explain the repetitive patterns in his interests and hobbies. It could also help explain some of his obsessive phases with specific things and hobbies. You mentioned this is a problem for him?”

  
“Yeah. Listen. Whatever this is, what meds does he need? Does he take a pill? A shot?”

  
“Oh! No, not at all. Asperger’s isn’t a mental illness. There’s no cure and no medication. The idea is to provide support for Ed as he needs it. Some of his behavior may become more normalized with time. People with Asperger’s often learn to develop better social skills as they get older simply through practice. All Ed needs are parents who understand him. It will also help if teachers are made aware of it and learn to better communicate with him.”

  
Dad snorts. “Really? Leave it alone? That’s your advice? How do you think he’s going to get anywhere? How do you think he’s going to act like a normal goddamn human being for once?”

  
“Therapy sessions with a trained professional could help him find ways to develop better social skills.”

  
Ed hears Dad sigh. He imagines he’s rolled his eyes. “If you think the problem is him not talking, you’re wrong. He never shuts up; walk into a room and he goes on a tangent about World War I or separating Siamese twins and won’t drop the subject even when you tell him to.”

“It’s more the idea of him speaking with a trained professional; someone who’s used to communicating with people on the Autism spectrum.”

“He needs to know what the real world’s like. He won’t get far if he has someone babying him.”

  
There’s a pause. The psychiatrist finally says, “Ms. Nashton, you’ve been very quiet so far. What are your thoughts on the subject?”

  
There’s another pause. Then Mom’s voice, sullen and almost too quiet for Ed to hear: “What he said.”

 

 

Ed’s placed in advanced classes early on, the only ones available, and they’re still boring. He hopes the other kids in the “smart group” might like him more, but no such luck. He still has people tell him he’s weird, he’s annoying, no one wants to hear what he has to say, that he’s a terrible listener so why should they bother with him?

  
Grown-ups are a little more patient. A bartender at Mom’s work, for instance. He’s big and blond and handsome and reminds Ed of a happy Golden Retriever. He wears glasses but he’s also _cool_ , so Ed feels like maybe he can also wear glasses and be cool with his new prescription. Ed guesses his age to be somewhere between old and ancient, but finds out years later he was in his early twenties when Mom was working there.

  
The bartender, Jack, sometimes uses puzzles as an ice-breaker with pretty girls who come into the bar, and it’s one night Dad’s out watching the game with friends and Mom’s waiting tables at work that he’s doing homework at the bar. Jack has fixed him a Coke with grenadine and after the dinner rush at the bar dies down Jack sets the puzzle, a metal ring contraption, in front of Ed.

  
“I noticed you finished your homework,” Jack says, grinning. “Thought you might like a crack at this. No one’s gotten all the way through it this week, yet.”

  
“You don’t have to humor him, Jack,” Mom says as she grabs several beers to put on her drinks tray.

  
Jack waves a hand. “Nah, it’s fine. He’s not bothering me.” He explains the rules of the puzzle, of fitting and rearranging the rings in three spools in a pattern that ends with the smallest rings on top of the largest by stacking them.

  
Ed doesn’t want to be rude, and he’s told it’s rude to interrupt, but he figures out what he has to do before Jack finishes talking, so he nods and peers down at the puzzle before Jack heads off to tend to paying customers.

  
He’s done jigsaw puzzles. There are plenty at school; ones with up to a third of the pieces missing, but he’s never seen one like this. It doesn’t matter. This puzzle makes sense to him. He doesn’t get why people have trouble with it, or why people can’t see what he sees.

  
When Jack comes back to check on Ed’s progress, he says nothing for a few minutes and watches Ed finish the puzzle. Ed looks up, wondering if he’s done something wrong, because he’s learning that that’s usually the case.

  
He doesn’t understand the look on Jack’s face when he steps back. “Huh,” Jack says. “You’re a smart kid. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  
And _that_ Ed gets. He grins. Yes, people tell him that. It doesn’t make him any friends, doesn’t make him get along with his parents any better, but apparently it’s very important how smart he is. Apparently he’ll always have trouble making friends, but he will, as they tell him “Go far in life” because he’s so smart. “Yep!” he replies, and takes a sip of Coke.

  
Mom loses her job two months later; she’s shown up to work drunk or hungover too often. She gets another one eventually. She’s a pretty waitress with bartending experience and a young child to support. But it’s not as good of a waitressing job, and he doesn’t see Jack again or find out if he has new puzzles.

 

 

He’s ten and in the seventh grade when the meds start. He never went to a therapist; his parents thought it was a useless, expensive investment with no payoff, but they have just enough money for meds, provided they work. He goes to a couple of psychiatrists who ask him about his friends—and again he has none. He figures out early that teachers don’t count. Mom’s coworkers that think he’s funny don’t count either. They ask him about his parents. They ask if his parents beat him. They ask if his father is violent. They ask him in hushed, concerned voices, if his Dad has ever “touched” him.

  
And he hasn’t. His parents have slapped him a few times; his father once hard enough to send his glasses flying across the room, but it doesn’t happen often. And his parents’s parents were much worse, or so he’s told. He hears stories of “the belt” and “the wrench.” Dad claims his father used to put out cigarette butts on him, and there are still slight circular burns on his arms, so Ed guesses it’s true. It’s never been like _that_ , never been _that_ bad. And no, neither of his parents ever “touched him” like Ed thinks the psychiatrists are implying. So he says no, his father isn’t violent.

  
He doesn’t know how to say that the cuts Dad makes are with his words, with the way he and Mom shout at each other with Ed wide awake in the next room about whose fault it is that their kid is such a little shit. How Dad doesn’t want his friends from work and the local dive bar to meet his son, because the embarrassment of having such a useless fucking kid would surely kill him, and he’s the main breadwinner of the house. How’s Ed ever going to provide for anyone? By being the first hitman to talk someone to death?

  
How Mom watches him sometimes when she’s claimed she’s had just two drinks, and tells him, “I used to be beautiful before you. I used to have my shit together before you.”

  
His “obsessive” phases concern his parents and teachers at times; the obsession with classical mythology and dead languages simply annoy. Lately he’s been on a _Titus Andronicus_ kick, though, instead of the nice Shakespeare plays about teenagers killing themselves and men being manipulated to kill their wives or every one of their political opponents in order to become King of Scotland, and after a few visits a psychiatrist declares that Ed also has OCD, and there is a medication for that. His parents accept the fee, once again turn down the offer to get Ed therapy, and tell Ed they better see some goddamn results.

  
The pills make him nauseous, make his hands shake. He feels as though he’s under the effects adults describe as “caffeine overload.” They don’t change him, don’t fix him. Ed checks out several books at the library on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to see for himself if the psychiatrists were right. He thinks, after what he’s read on Asperger’s, that they were right in diagnosing him with that, but if he feels worse for the meds, maybe this isn’t his problem.

  
He has rituals, ones that don’t seem like an issue to him. He likes to take apart his food and eat the ingredients separately at meals. He goes through obsessions with topics and genres. But those habits have been associated with Asperger’s as well. And he doesn’t need any pills that make him sick for that. So he stops taking the meds. And he feels much better.

  
At the breakfast table, he hides the pill in between his cheek and gums as he pretends to wash it down, then spits it out in his napkin as he pretends to wipe his mouth. A clean system. His hands stop shaking so badly he can’t play the piano in the school music room the music teacher lets him use at lunch.

  
But the effects of the meds kept him quiet, and Dad gets suspicious, even as he can’t quite put his finger on why. Why his son goes back to being a motor-mouthed nerd. Ed just keeps hoping his father's as dense as he is terrifying. He doesn't want to know what Dad will do to him if he finds out. If he'll become the monster Dad claims _his_ father was, that Ed's lucky _he_ isn't.

  
Ed’s system comes to a screeching halt one morning when he’s eleven and his mother’s up early enough to join them for breakfast instead of waking up an hour later hungover and left with the dirty dishes, and she catches on.

.....................

“Have you ever had to administer a pill to an animal?” Ed asks suddenly. He looks up. His jaw is tight, his eyes bright with unshed tears.

  
Oswald, feeling sudden dread creep up in his stomach, shakes his head.

  
“But you know how it works? You, you hold the animal to you so it can’t move away, and you…” Ed extends his hand forward towards an imaginary jaw in the space between them, “you pinch its jaw open and put the pill in. You…” He clears his throat.

  
Oswald knows the story Ed’s telling. And Oswald knows somehow no one else knows what Ed has faced. “You keep its mouth closed until you see it swallow down, but some animals wise up to it, you see? They might pretend to swallow the pill but hold it under its tongue and spit it out later, so you have to check its mouth afterward.”

  
Oswald doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know if he can speak. He takes one of Ed’s hands in between his own. Ed squeezes his hand, and those dark eyes look like wide mirrors but he doesn’t cry. There’s an old, buried-deep fury in his gaze as well.

......................

Ed feels tears prick up at the corner of his eyes as he stands, pinned down, humiliated. He feels not like an early MENSA candidate who could wipe the floor with other MENSA candidates, but like a disobedient puppy who needs to be house-trained. He feels like a beast being domesticated before an audience.

  
When he gags, when instinct goes against good judgment and he pushes the pill to the front of his mouth, tries to open his jaw, Dad’s grip tightens.

  
“You gonna cry now?” he snaps. “Be a _man_ , for God’s sake.”

  
And Ed manages not to cry completely. He pictures punching his Dad straight in the jaw, of shocking him and showing him he’s the “ _goddamn man_ ” Dad says he needs to be.

  
“Now, you can try to make me the bad guy,” Dad tells him later, “but you brought this on yourself.”

  
It goes on every day. Every day Ed needs meds, every day Dad force-feeds him the pill like he’s a dog. And every day Ed imagines the moment he’s large and strong enough to beat the shit out of him. Each day he pictures being tough, being as tall as Dad, and beating him to a bloody crying pulp before spitting on him and walking off like Sylvester Fucking Stallone.

  
It never happens. Even as he knows he’ll be just as tall and nearly as big in the shoulders. In the end it doesn’t matter.

  
He goes to another therapist session when puberty is at its worst, and a psychiatrist who knows nothing about his other medications and diagnoses, who watches Ed actively no longer care how they misdiagnose him this time. Ed tells him every ink blot looks like a vagina to him the first round of Rorschach tests and the second round says they all look like penises.

  
The psychiatrist doesn't know how to handle Ed's petulance, and doesn’t know how to deal with a thirteen-year-old who’s starting his sophomore year of high school. Instead he tells Ed's parents that Ed is bipolar and also has ADHD. So then they cut off old prescriptions because they’re not millionaires of course, and prescribe him Welbutrin and Adderal.

  
Again, they make him nauseous, but in a manner that feels like it renders him incapable of speech. And he doesn’t have to take the meds for OCD, which the psychiatrists have since decided isn’t the reason he’s so unbearable and can’t handle being with people.

  
These pills make Ed wish he was still on OCD medication. The word problems, the riddles, they were a hobby before this. He _loved_ puzzles before this.

  
He wishes he had an older sibling, a cousin to send him on scavenger hunts he could easily solve, and he has nothing. He has all these puzzles he wants to show others, ones he created he wants others to try and solve, and no one cares. And now it's worse. Now he has to spend too much time regulating his own breathing to care about puzzles or wordplay. He’s trapped in a universe in which people far less intelligent can play with rhymes and word-searches and he’s stuck.

  
It’s the Welbutrin that does him in. Two weeks into his sophomore year of high school, when he’s in the art room discussing the Pointilist movement, there are a few minutes he can’t recollect. He doesn’t remember what he was saying. He doesn’t remember falling back and losing consciousness, doesn’t remember his head cracking against the floor. He remembers waking up in the school nurse’s office, the principal glaring down at him as though he’s done something wrong. He remembers people asking about the giant bump on the back of his head. He remembers touching it and thinking, “How did a hair-covered hardboiled egg get on the back of my skull? And why does that necessitate a trip to the ER?”

  
He remembers the hospital ride. He doesn’t remember the grand-mal epileptic seizure, doesn’t remember any moment of it. It’s simply that jump between times, like Mom describes a blackout is like. Some part of his brain scrambled for that part of his life, and he’ll never get the memories.

He passes out in the ambulance and wakes up in the ER to find his father standing over him, going, “Are you _fucking_ kidding me?”

....................

“Did your mother ever defend you?” Oswald asks. Part of him already knows the answer. Part of him knows, no. If Ed had had anyone on his side, he might be a different man now. Much of him was likely always going to be similar to the chaotic, mischievous genius he is now. It’s just so incredible to Oswald though that he can’t help but ask. He’s hardly three years older than Ed, yet all he wants to do is shield him, wishes he could’ve been able to protect the boy living hours away in dying rust-belt stock and tell him how brilliant and clever he is.

  
He wishes Ed had a mother to tell him he’s better than all the bullies and he'll be a great man one day; to have a father to be impressed with his rule-breaking and tell him he has a beautiful soul. All he can think, for one moment, is how much he wants to protect the boy Ed once was. And he can’t. So all he can do is hold is the man Ed has become, the one Oswald has grown to love.

  
Of course Ed laughs again; he throws his head back when he does, and Oswald winces. Often when Ed offers genuine laughter, he ducks his head and chortles before it dissolves into a belly laugh that finishes in his diaphragm, but not now.

  
“Have you not been listening?” Ed asks. Not closely enough, Oswald guesses. Not closely enough to recognize this story has no happy ending.

  
Ed is fucked up by many standards, but lesser men have started with far more. And Oswald loves him. This is the fucked-up man he knows he never wants to live without. And Ed is sitting here now, baring his soul for him.

.......................

Ed’s in the ER when the final foundations of his parents’s marriage falls apart. No one cares that he skipped two grades. No one cares that he has an IQ of 171 or that the local community college is offering him free after-school classes. No one cares that he stands to get a Ph.D by the time he's twenty-four. No one cares that Ed’s the smartest person in his little rust-belt town. No one cares how well he stands to fare since he can’t throw a football.

  
He’ll show them. He’ll prove they’re all goddamn imbeciles. His parents are idiots. He knows by now that they can’t understand him if, regardless of if Ed knew how to communicate with the beer-guzzling populace he can’t stand, they wouldn’t care anyway. Dad will always be the guy who drinks crappy domestic beer and talks about “true Americans” and Mom will always work when she needs to, cough up as much of her tips as she needs to and trust that Ed never mentions that she takes off her wedding ring while she works for extra tips.

  
His parents don’t love each other, and he’s done nothing to unite him like they thought he would.

  
Soon after the ER trip, blood tests determine that the Welbutrin in his bloodstream makes him more susceptible to seizures, and he’s taken off the medication. It does not endear him to his teachers, school administration, or, least of all, his parents. He cost them money they can’t really afford; he costs heavy prices for people with shitty insurance.

 

 

Mom always accused Dad, if by “always” he means the last two years, of fucking the foreman’s wife or daughter depending on how angry she was with him, but it turns out she’s cheating with the manager of a sports bar. One with a new branch opening up in Philly.

  
The last time her hears her voice she’s screaming at his father for the first time he’s ever heard her stand up to him. He’s finally lucid but still apparently annoying, and sitting up in bed listening to it all.

  
“You think I wanted this, Jim?” Mom demands. She keeps drilling, keeps demanding, and Ed supposes, were he in a different position, he might even feel bad for her. “You broke me. He broke me. I had so much. I had love to give. But I don't anymore. Do you have any idea how that feels?

  
“I can’t love our own child, Jim.” Her voice breaks. “I thought I was supposed to be a mother, but I can’t even do that. I can’t love our son. And it’s not my fault.”

  
Ed knows, partly from his parents’s coworkers, partly from his books on what disorders he supposedly has, Mom’s an alcoholic. She usually maintains a job. If she doesn’t, she finds a new one soon enough. She still has a problem, and she's convinced that Ed's made it worse. She doesn’t hit him—often--doesn’t tell him she hates him, but he knows. Somehow he knows she hates him. Whether it’s because he didn’t evoke maternal protection in her, or because his existence never got her to sober up, or get her to be a stronger woman to act on her knowledge that Dad is a horrible person, he isn't sure. But he resents her. She was never violent, but she never protected him from Dad. She doesn’t love him. She doesn’t care. And he promises himself he’ll never date women like her. He’ll date only well-dressed, proper ladies with graduate degrees who never drink too much.

  
“Right. Fine. Some little drunk girl thinks she can start something new. Having our dumb fucking kid is the best thing you ever did!” Dad tells him.

  
“You think this is a vacation for me, you piece of shit? I am _miserable_! I am dying every moment I stay here."

She leaves with a suitcase that night; she sends a moving truck for the rest of her belongings a week later. It's a few years before his parents actually get divorced. Maybe because Mom doesn't want custody. Maybe because Dad doesn't want to worry about alimony payments. Dad's own drinking gets worse, and he goes on strings of dates that never last long. He has one fewer person to yell at; Mom didn't protect Ed, but she provided a distraction. And Ed's trapped with him.

................

“Last I heard, she’s remarried,” Ed says. “Twelve years sober, too. Not sure why people tell me this.” Ed pauses. "When she first got sober I was eighteen. She called me up to try and make amends; fourth step in the twelve step program."

  
"How'd it go?"

  
"I hung up on her. She got the message; hasn't tried to contact me directly since."

.......................

Ed’s fourteen, and is biding his time until he can leave, until he knows he can beat James Nashton do death with nothing more than sheer force of will. He thinks of the women in legends and tales who were thrown overboard at sea, who were keelhauled and killed and became sirens. If there’s a male equivalent, that’s what he wants. To haunt the men who cast off the strange and drag them to their doom.

  
Ed's fifteen, and bored with everything. His high school classes are insultingly easy, and the college courses not much better. He's put under review after getting a perfect score on his SAT--a fiasco that ends with his father backhanding him with a force that breaks his glasses, calling him a cheater and a fuck-up. Ed doesn't get to hit him back. He will. He promises himself before he leaves for college he'll hurt him. In the end his score is validated. His father doesn't apologize or admit his wrong.

  
He applies to top universities and gets into every one. He decides on Gotham University; he wants to see the big city, wants to leave the small pond and dominate the ocean (yes, yes, fresh water versus seawater, but semantics.) Gotham University offers him a full scholarship, which is good since Dad doesn't make much and Mom presumably drank away whatever savings his parents may or may not have set up at birth.

  
At sixteen he skips prom to watch Ingmar Bergman movies and definitely not because no one wanted to go with him. He graduates at the top of his class. He gets his driver's license and a summer job stocking shelves. He pictures how his life will go once he's in Gotham. He pictures having a smart and beautiful girlfriend--or perhaps a smart and handsome boyfriend, like he could never hope for in Sticksville, East of Nowhere--who's shy and works at the campus coffee shop and will discuss Absurdism and Keats and theoretical physics with him. He pictures being the best boyfriend anyone's ever had and becoming an amazing lover. He pictures becoming best friends with his roommate and having movie nights with the friends he makes in Microbiology. He pictures having a found family of fellow misfits.

 

Dad comes home drunk from post-work Friday night beers and shots with the guys the last week Ed has to stay here before college, and he's gearing up for a fight.

  
Dad's larger than sixteen-year-old Ed and far stronger. Ed doesn't care. He's had enough. If Dad wants to pick a fight with his entitled arrogant annoying son who thinks he's too good for real America but in fact is too weird to ever be a part of it, so be it.

  
"You think you're better than me. Don't deny it. You think your textbooks and your glasses make you better than anyone in this town."

  
"That's right," Ed tells him.

  
Dad scoffs, but Ed's surprised him, and they both know it. "What did you just say?"

  
"I _am_  better than you," Ed says. He hears his voice rise in volume, and the words fall without filter, without thought. He's fantasized about this moment, of all the things to say to him. He's rehearsed it in the privacy of his room again and again. "And I'm better than every worthless soul in this worthless town, and you know it. You can't handle that I've been smarter than you all my life. You can't handle that I was made for better things and you're just some dumb shit who works in a _fucking steel mill._ "

  
That's when Dad punches him.

  
Dad has hit him with an open palm before several times throughout his life, but he's never used a closed fist. Maybe it was his way of convincing himself that he's a better father than his had been.

  
And Ed's been punched a few times by classmates, although the playground beatings died down before his bullies could put any real weight behind them.

  
He's pretty sure his nose is broken as he staggers back, the pain making his head swim.

  
He has the presence of mind to take off his glasses and set them down once he reaches for the table behind him to keep him balanced. They're expensive, and Dad's already broken them once.

  
Dad laughs again. "You think you're gonna fight me, huh?"

  
_Yes. Yes he does._

  
Ed puts everything into the punch he throws into his Dad's left eye, and he doesn't care about the pain that reverberates through his wrist and forearm as he does it.  
He's surprised his Dad again, who staggers back in shock. _Good_ , he thinks, and swings again.

  
He hits Dad's cheek this time, and he doesn't care how much each punch hurts, how he's going to get the shit kicked out him before the night's over. He'll get in as many licks as possible. He will make goddamn certain his father never comes near him again.

  
The moment Dad recovers from his surprise he swings and swings hard. He punches Ed so hard in the eye he loses his vision for several seconds. He doesn't get a chance to recover before Dad winds up again and punches him in the jaw.

  
Ed throws punches wildly, vision blurring as the rage takes over. Some miss, some connect, and he knows he's getting hit and he doesn't care. He doesn't care that he's bruised and bleeding because he'll leave Jim Nashton, manliest of manly men, in far worse shape when he's done with him.

  
But he grips Ed's throat with one calloused hand, shoves him back against the table, and _squeezes_...

  
I'm going to die, Ed thinks. He'd thought his father couldn't terrify him any more. He'd thought he wasn't scared of him any more. He can't breathe. He's losing the sensation in his fingers...

  
_You should've waited until you were larger, until you were stronger, until you could scare him._

  
_But you didn't._

  
"You're a piece of shit son," Dad tells him, jaw tight and teeth clenched.

  
And he lets go.

He lets go and he takes a step back, spits a wad of blood on the floor.

"Now get the fuck out of my sight."

Ed tries to get up. He massages his neck as he regains his breath, as he reaches for his glasses. His hands shake with rage and he wobbles as he gets to his feet.

He charges for his father one last time, rams into him and shoves him with all his might into the fridge door.

His father grabs his shoulders and shoves him off, slams his forehead against the fridge.

Ed's vision goes white; he vaguely wonders if his glasses are okay.

"You hear me?"

_Unfortunately._

"I hate you," Ed tells him. He stumbles back as he regains his sense of equilibrium. He realizes when he speaks that blood's coming out of his nostrils. He wipes it off with his arm. "I hate you so fucking much. I swear to God I could kill you right now."

"No you couldn't," Dad tells him. Ed takes full account of the damage he's inflicted, and for a moment he feels that flush of pride as he sees the blood, the bruises, the way his father also sways where he stands. "You already tried and you failed."

Ed stops.

He could bolt for the cutlery drawer, could grab a knife and lodge it in his windpipe. Could just strangle the old man right now.

And lose his future.

And never go to college and spend the rest of his adult life in prison.

He doesn't have any resources, any means covering his tracks if he killed him. His father has no motive to suddenly disappear.

  
It's not a matter of not having it in him to take this man's life--it's the fallout after. He absolutely _could_ kill his father. And what scares him is that the only thing stopping him from doing it is the practical, not emotional consequences.

  
"I'm leaving," he says finally. He tries to keep his voice even, his gait balanced as he makes it to the front door, as he grabs the car keys from its place on the table beside it and storms out.

  
He drives his Dad's car to one of his professor's houses; Aaron Sleeper, who is the closest person Ed has to a friend.

  
He's home, and when he answers the door he gapes at Ed's face.

  
"Holy shit. Ed, what happened? You look like hell."

  
"Yeah, well," Ed sticks his hands in his pockets. "You should see the other guy," he jokes.

Professor Sleeper's expression doesn't change. "Do you need me to call the cops? Get you to a hospital?"

" _No_!" Ed stops, tries to laugh. "That won't be necessary. I just..." He realizes his nose is bleeding again. He wipes it once more with the back of his hand. He studies the red smear across his skin. "Did you know the medical term for a nosebleed is epistaxis?

"I'm sorry, Professor. I just didn't know where else to go."

Professor Sleeper watches him; Ed isn't sure what Sleeper's looking for or if he finds it. "My daughter is with her mother this weekend, if you want to take her room," he tells him. "Let me get you some ice and Iodine. Maybe some painkillers as well."

.........................

"He's the one who sent me this letter."

"Did you tell him at least what your father did to you?" Oswald asks.

Ed doesn't speak for a moment. "No," he says finally. "He probably thought I got into a fight with one of the school jocks. I was the only boy in my school who didn't play a single sport and I never could flirt with a girl without floundering and making her hate me. I didn't want to talk about it, and he didn't press.  
"Maybe he guessed right later. If he did he never told me."

............................

Ed gets the rest of his belongings the next day and packs them into the largest cardboard boxes he can find. He keeps them in Professor Sleeper's basement until moving day, when Sleeper offers to drive him the five hours down to Gotham to help get him moved in. He takes the day off work to do it. His roommate, a handsome lacrosse player named Dave, offers brief pleasantries before going to meet with his fellow athletes, and it's nearly the most they'll interact the entire time they spend as roommates.

He can't truly be free from his father while he's still legally a minor. There are still documents he needs signed, still things that require a guardian's signature. He mails them, gets them returned.

But he never goes home again.

..........................

"How?" Oswald asks. "You were still a child then. You couldn't rent an apartment or things like that, could you?

Ed shakes his head. "I participated in student projects in the summer that offered housing; it was covered by the scholarship. The moment I moved to Gotham I never looked back."

Oswald looks at him. He knows a lot about Edward Nygma. He never knew Edward Nashton until now.

He moves one of his hands to Ed's cheek. He leans in and kisses him as tenderly as he can, and Ed stiffens before relaxing into the kiss. He takes Oswald's other hand in his. People change, people get broken. People heal.

"My parents would have loved you," Oswald tells him.

Ed stares, eyes wide. The tears seem to start forming, but again they stop short of falling. He kisses Oswald back, smiles a sad little smile against his mouth.

....................................

Included in the letter is information about the upcoming funeral. Instead of attending, the day of the funeral Ed writes a personal check to an abuse hotline. He stays in with Oswald before feeling too uncomfortable being still and left with his own thoughts and convinces Oswald to go out with him.

"I was eighteen when I started the process of getting my name changed," Ed tells him when they're at dinner, sitting at the bar of a restaurant in the Upper West side.

"To E. Nygma." Oswald grins. "While, you often are a bit of a mystery."

Ed grins back. He starts to move his hand towards Oswald's before stopping himself. He's more affectionate than Oswald is; he has a more difficult time preventing himself from public displays of affection, and Oswald wonders if there will come a time when they don't have to keep their relationship a secret.

Regardless, Oswald loves Edward Nygma, and he loves the traces of Edward Nashton that still remain. The dreamer, the survivor, the ambitious person who wanted to be loved.


End file.
